


Route 666

by bewildered



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Road Trips, probably not porn but who knows what will happen?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2019-09-06 02:37:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16823452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bewildered/pseuds/bewildered
Summary: Lorne needs to get out of LA. Spike has a car and no reason to stay. Can this Odd Couple survive the road trip from hell? And will Buffy ever catch up?Takes place after Not Fade Away, comics do not exist. Rated R for foul language and sexual situations.Started for Seasonal Spuffy Round XX Fall 2018.





	1. San Bernardino

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Sigyn for betareading so far!

Spike stalked down the row of cars, ignoring the shards of pain radiating from his cracked ribs, the dull ache of bruises, the sting of what felt like a thousand tiny cuts. Not the Lambo, nor the McLaren. He curled his lip at the Bentley. Definitely not the bloody piece of shit poseur Alfa Romeo.

He could take the Viper, it was a sweet ride, sleek and candy-apple-red -- he paused in front of it for a moment, considering -- but no, it wouldn’t be fun any more. It had only been fun because it was Angel’s favorite.

He kicked it as he moved on down the line, the shattering glass of the headlight not nearly as cathartic as he’d hoped.

The one he chose -- the one he’d wanted all along, really -- was parked in the furthest space of the executive garage, likely purchased for its rarity rather than any real cachet. The 1961 DeSoto, last of its kind. It was close enough to his own treasured vehicle, sold to finance his trip to Africa, that when he slid behind the wheel he felt dizzy with nostalgia. Driving to South America with Dru. That ersatz stakeout with Buffy. Taking out the bloody Welcome to Sunnydale sign, time after time, like a bloody tradition. He’d always known where he was going, driving his baby, always had a song on his lips and the wind in his hair -- metaphorically, of course, he hated having literal wind in his hair, it set the curls loose.

He sat behind the wheel for several minutes, wondering where he should go now.

“Away from here, you berk,” he finally muttered to himself, and that gave him the impetus to turn the key in the ignition.

The DeSoto came to life with a smooth purr that was almost insulting. Bloody thing had its original body and interior, probably even original paint, but he’d wager the engine had been souped up both mechanically and magically to make it worthy of Wolfram and Hart. He knew the glass was an upgrade -- every bloody vehicle in the garage was fucking necro-tempered and daylight-safe for vamps -- and they’d even done something with the radio, put in a cassette deck that looked like it was original even though it couldn’t be -- no bloody cassettes in 1961 -- but otherwise it was a bonafide classic. Just the sort of vehicle a law firm CEO might take out for a weekend pleasure drive along the coast. He could almost see Angel popping in a bloody Barry Manilow tape, that fucking incredulous grin on his face as he headed out to drive in the sun….

Spike gritted his teeth and shifted into gear, screeching out of the garage into the night.

*

“Where am I? Oh, crumbcake, I wish I knew.”

Lorne sighed and glared at the flat tires on the passenger side of his XC90 -- tires, plural, because that’s how karma worked, except okay, not karma, karma was supposed to be in your next life, so the real question was, what had he done in his past life to deserve this? And what was his next life going to have to do to make up for this one? Could he send his next life a note of apology? Maybe a classy flower arrangement?

“I took the scenic route,” he told the roadside assistance lady. Lisa, she’d said in soothing tones, like he was a runaway horse. “That was my first mistake. Like I can appreciate the scenery at three in the morning. So I think I passed, um, an art gallery of some kind? Or a commune? And now I’m by a stone wall. With graffiti. I didn’t think graffiti artists came out to the middle of nowhere, but apparently they do.”

Lisa murmured something noncommittal, typing away.

“So, um….” He glanced at his watch. “I passed Nealeys Corner about ten minutes ago, headed to Cajon Junction. No, not the 15. I, um, took Route 66. Real smart, huh? And then there was this… I don’t know what it was. Metal something or other? And both my tires are totally shredded. If they were wheat, they’d be a breakfast cereal. And, you know, I only have one spare. Does that seem a little short-sighted to you?”

Lisa kindly refrained from pointing out that one was the standard number of spare tires in basically every vehicle ever made; he appreciated that, and appreciated it even more when she pinpointed his location. “San Bernardino, huh?” The song bubbled up in his head, but he squashed it down. “So, Lisa, what can you do for me this fine morning? Almost morning,” he corrected, glancing at the lightening sky in the east. “Morning’s thinking of being a thing soon.”

He listened carefully, heart sinking down to his toes. “Uh-huh. A tow. To the nearest Volvo dealership. And where is that?”

He turned and gazed back down the road, distracted. Were those headlights?

“Ontario? Oh, sweetie, that’s back the way I came. You sure you don’t have one the other way?” They _were_ headlights; he watched warily as they approached. “I really, really don’t want to go back to L.A.” 

The car zoomed past, not even slowing, a huge black boat of a car. _Classic,_ Lorne thought absently, briefly jealous of both the style and the fact that it was in motion in the direction he wanted to go. “All right, a tow would be lovely. There’s bound to be a Hertz in the area, right?”

There was an ungodly screech as the black behemoth braked, coming to a standstill a few hundred yards down the road. The smell of burning rubber wafted back, strong enough to make Lorne’s eyes water. _Holy crapola, Batman,_ he thought bitterly. _Either I’m about to get robbed, so tonight can be a perfect storm of misery, or they’ve found me. Which is worse._

Lisa said something reassuring about help being on the way.

“Uh-huh,” Lorne distractedly muttered over his cell, watching as the car executed an abrupt, somehow sullen three-point turn on the narrow highway, heading back in his direction. “Yeah. Thank you-- Lisa, was it? Yes. Thank you. I’ll be waiting for your call. Bye now.” He disconnected as the hulking classic swerved into the pulloff, stopping abruptly a few yards away, headlights bright as stage lights.

“I told you, I’m not going back,” he called out before the door even opened. Because really, who would come down _this_ road looking for a convenient mugging victim?

It wasn’t Angel’s bulky shape that emerged from the car, though, and Lorne was briefly offended that the big guy couldn’t be bothered to come himself, even as he pulled himself up even taller to face Spike. His unwelcome Good Samaritan had left the engine running and he didn’t bother closing the door either, just stepping around it and leaning up against the hood, pulling out a cigarette. His hair practically glowed in the light of the moon, just past full. Something loud and tuneless that Spike undoubtedly considered “music” blared out the open door.

“Don’t think your sexy undead Steve McQueen act is going to convince me, either,” Lorne went on, folding his arms. “You can tell Angel--”

“Angel didn’t send me,” Spike growled around his cigarette, profile briefly illuminated by the flare of his Zippo. He had a black eye, dark as the night around them, and his knuckles were bruised and raw.

“Oh.” Lorne suppressed a tiny flare of hurt. “Well, that’s good. But I’m still not going back. I’m done.”

Spike just took a deep drag, staring off across the road as he exhaled a huge cloud of smoke. “Car trouble?” he asked, voice neutral, like they were strangers. Which Lorne had to admit they kind of were. He’d gotten to know bits and pieces over the past months, but really most of what he knew about Spike was what Angel had told him. Angel had always been between them.

“Flat tire. Tires.” Lorne sighed, turning to lean against his own car, staring off at the moonlit hills. The sun would be up soon, assuming the world wasn’t ending after all. Was Spike the type to have a relaxed smoke in the face of the apocalypse? Or had Angel won? He felt it on the tip of his tongue -- _did we win?_ \-- but the _we_ stuck in his craw. They weren’t a _we_ any more, hadn’t been since Angel had asked him to kill. Since he’d agreed to kill, based on a song.

No, he wouldn’t ask. He didn’t care. He really, really didn’t.

Spike wasn’t volunteering any information; he took another puff at his cigarette, and another. “Need a ride?” he finally asked.

“Not back to LA, I don’t.”

“I’m not going back, either. No reason to stay.” He wasn’t singing, but his casual words sent a rush of cold through Lorne anyhow.

“So Wolfram and Hart won after all?” Lorne glanced back towards the glow of the city; it didn’t seem any more red than usual.

Spike glanced at him sidelong. “Didn’t say that. Job’s been done. World’s all safe for puppies and Christmas.” He regarded the cherry of his cigarette. “Just figured it was time to move on.”

Something felt off about that, something about the way Spike was standing, curled into himself like a hedgehog, but Lorne steeled himself. He didn’t care what had happened. He was done, done with Angel and done with death and done with Los Angeles, shaking the dust right off his feet, and he’d be done with Spike, too... except that Spike had a car. A car that was headed in the right direction.

“Yeah,” Lorne said heavily. “I need a ride.”

Spike tossed his cigarette butt to the pavement, grinding it out under his Docs. “Can take you as far as Needles.”

“Needles?” That name seemed weirdly familiar, but Lorne was very certain he’d never been there. “What’s in Needles?”

“Dunno,” Spike shrugged, looking up at the moon.

When he didn’t elaborate, Lorne sighed. “All right. I’d love a ride to Needles.”

“Right.” Spike turned without looking at him, moving stiffly, and slid behind the wheel. The door slammed shut like a gunshot.

Lorne’s phone rang then, and he glanced at the number before answering. He didn’t recognize it, which was good. He’d rather talk to a telemarketer than anyone he knew. “Hello?”

It was Lisa.

“Thanks so much, sweetie,” he said when she’d passed on her update. “Can you let that driver know I’m not going to be with my Volvo after all? I’ll just leave the keys in the cupholder. And, um, tell the dealership they can keep it. Or, you know, crush it. Set it on fire. Whatever. Ciao, sweetie!” He disconnected before he thought better of the bridges he was burning.

He swiftly gathered his small pile of belongings off the front seat -- cassette tapes and a box of Krispy Kremes -- and popped the trunk to get the suitcase he’d packed before he went on his “mission,” full of expensive suits and bright ties he doubted he’d ever wear again. He really needed to own more brown, the way he was feeling. 1970s brown velour of shame. Sackcloth.

He tossed it all on the back seat of Spike’s beast of a car, taking only the donuts up to the front. Wincing at the volume of the screaming from the radio, he slid onto the bench seat. It figured Spike’s car would have state-of-the-art speakers.

Though for a moment he welcomed the noise. Maybe if his eardrums blew out, he’d never have to listen to anyone sing, ever again. Though then he’d also never get to hear anyone sing, ever again, not even Frank Sinatra.

Maybe that was what he deserved.

Spike didn’t look at him, frowning as he fiddled with something on the dash. Under the car’s dome light, his bruises seemed harsher, livid purple against his pale, pale skin. There was dried blood in his hair. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Lorne sighed, shifting the seat back to make room for his legs. For some reason, this made the radio even louder. “This is going to be the road trip from Hell,” he muttered under his breath, wrapping his brown leather coat a bit more snugly.

Spike grinned, shifting into gear. “Better buckle up.”

He screeched into a U-turn and peeled off down the road.

END CHAPTER 1


	2. Highgate

Giles had told her the Cedar of Lebanon in Highgate Cemetery was more than three hundred years old, and she had no reason to disbelieve him; as she stood with her hand on the rough bark, Buffy could almost feel the weight of the centuries, the ghosts of the past lingering around every corner.

Not that the ghosts were her problem. In fact, she’d been specifically instructed by the caretakers that she was to leave the ghosts be. They were what she was there to protect.

A year ago, that would have been kind of a freaky request, but after her time in London, and Italy, and Romania, and a good dozen or more old European cities, and now back in London again, she’d gotten used to the fact that the Old World was, well, _old._ She could hardly turn a corner without running into a building that had, like, a thousand candles on its birthday cake -- sometimes literally, the streets were kinda narrow -- and it was not just not uncommon, but downright run-of-the-mill for benign ghosties to be treated like members of the family.

When one of the cemetery caretakers had come to their headquarters to request aid, Buffy had seen enough weirditude that it didn’t creep her out at all. So maybe she’d grown as a person? Or maybe she was just getting jaded.

Maybe both.

 _You have to come,_ the matronly caretaker had begged. _The Mad Old Woman has been hiding in the Egyptian Avenue, and the Shrouded Figure has been cowering behind the stone lion. She won’t even talk to Gavin, and he’s her favorite. Nobody has seen the Devil Ghoul for weeks, and we’re getting worried. Please, there’s something in the cemetery that doesn’t belong. Can you help us?_

Buffy had volunteered before anybody else could. She was getting tired of all the desk work and meetings and stupid administrative stuff that went along with running an international anti-vampire organization. She needed to get out in the field and kick some ass.

Now if the ass-in-need-of-kicking would just show up, already!

Buffy could feel her muscles twitching, already impatient from the lack of action, and she shivered, fingers clutching at the three-hundred-year-old tree’s bark, awash in dread. She’d needed to get out, but god, she hated hunting in England. Hated it, hated it, hated it. She hated it so much that every few weeks she’d just take off, heading to whatever European city she could pretend needed her, just so she could not be in England for a while.

Because every vampire she staked sounded like either Giles or Spike.

Giles had given her The Look when she’d said as much to him, wryly pointing out that there were a good dozen regional accents at the very least, and that with some egregious simplification, but for Pete’s sake! She couldn’t be expected to know what the difference was between Brummie and Geordie, or whatever jibber-jabber Giles had tried to explain to her. All she knew was that sometimes when a vamp talked to her, they were all Fancy English, so they made her feel like she was killing Giles, or else they were Punky English, and made her feel like she was killing Spike.

She didn’t tell Giles that she felt a whole lot worse about the Punky English vamps. She’d never actually killed Giles, after all.

She took a deep breath and consciously relaxed her hand before it started digging grooves in the bark of the Really Old Tree, but it didn’t stop her from remembering how it had felt. Her hand clasping Spike’s. Fire, actual flames, wreathing their hands. His eyes burning even hotter.

His eyes, dying right in front of her.

Goddammit, there was supposed to be something evil to kill here. When the hell was it going to show up? If she was going to stake an English-accented vamp, she wanted to get it over with.

It had almost gotten to be a routine, really. _Buffy stakes Punky English vampire. Buffy flees to somewhere in Europe that is blissfully sans-Punky-English-vampires. Buffy has regrettable sex with non-Punky-non-English-someone-or-other. Buffy regrets regrettable sex and comes back to England._ Rinse and repeat, often enough that Willow always had a freezer stocked up with Phish Food when Buffy ended up back in Jolly Olde.

On her last trip to Italy, ostensibly visiting Dawn but really just continuing the cycle, she’d almost gotten in over her head, and Dawn had lain down the law. It was bad enough that Buffy was setting a bad example for her only sister, she’d fumed, but did she have to pick the most famous morally-ambiguous supernatural guy in the country to do it with? It was like Buffy was trying to get killed.

And Buffy hadn’t really been able to argue with that. She _had_ gotten reckless, like she was trying to find a lover who’d finally finish the job Sunnydale had started, and that realization had been enough to convince her to break things off with the Immortal and come back to England.

He’d taken the news with a philosophical shrug, which was a clear sign she was making the right move. Was it too much to ask that he at least _try_ to convince her otherwise?

But anyhow, Willow had been ready with the Phish Food, and Giles had been ready with a stack of paperwork and Executive Decisions that needed to be made, and the Friends of Highgate Cemetery had been ready with a job, and so what if she was saving ghosts instead of living people? Beatrice-or-whoever clearly felt the ghosts were her family, and that made them worth saving. Right?

A flicker of movement caught her eye, and she focused on it like a laser, dizzy from a wash of relief, because she was so tired of being alone with her thinky thoughts; she leapt down from her high vantage point and set off towards where she’d seen the flutter of white. Which she supposed could be one of the ghosts, but right now a Mad Old Woman seemed a lot more fun than another round of thoughts spinning around and around like a whirlpool sucking her inexorably back to that moment.

Flames and hands and eyes, his eyes--

She shut it away and sank into the hunt instead.

She paused when she reached the overgrown jumble of monuments where she’d seen the flicker of movement, barely breathing; there was a giggle from a little further down, and she chased that in turn, following hints of movement and sound until she realized she had come back to where she started, the Circle of Lebanon, where a row of dark catacombs arched along a packed dirt walkway, half covered with green moss and clover. She’d wandered the circle earlier, absently reading the epitaphs and the carved names in the mottled, licheny stone, glancing at the doors. Another way in which the Old World was old -- she was used to the manicured lawns and pristine white stone of Sunnydale’s cemeteries, as featureless and bland as a suburban lawn.

Highgate, on the other hand, was a jumbled mess of skewed monuments, statues of dogs and lions and a thousand angels, overgrown with shrubs and ivy and moss, the stone weathered and discolored and worn to softness. The crypts were massive and ostentatious in a way the presumptuous upstart Alpert Crypt had only dreamed of, literal mansions for the dead. The caretaker had told her, with a shockingly matter-of-fact air, that the undead didn’t generally settle in Highgate, as it was too old even for them to feel comfortable, and certainly she hadn’t sensed even a glimmer of vampiric energy from behind any of the closed doors she’d passed.

All the doors were open now.

Buffy cautiously stalked along the crypts, stake in hand, peering in at the dusty sarcophagi that had lain undisturbed for years, closing each door as she verified the interiors were clear. The dust didn’t even seem to have been touched, piled thick as snow on every surface, and she silently sent apologies to the residents for whatever mischievous intruder had disturbed them even that much.

When she reached the far end of the circle and closed the last door, she heard it again, the laugh, except closer, and she raised her eyes once again to the ancient cedar tree, to the very spot where she’d stood herself, eyes narrowing at the sight of the white-clad figure whose hand now rested on the tree’s trunk.

“Drusilla,” she murmured, somehow feeling not at all surprised.

“Hello, poppet,” Drusilla said softly, eyes shadowed in her pale, pale face, lips curved in a wide smile. “Miss Edith told me I would find you here.”

“Funny,” Buffy said lightly, inching out in a circle to a better vantage point. “Here I thought I was the one looking for you.” She hadn’t really interacted directly with Drusilla much -- she’d always been focused on Spike, and had barely exchanged five sentences with his paramour -- but Buffy knew how dangerous she was, and she wasn’t going to take any chances. The question was, how was she going to get close enough to stake her when she’d lost the high ground?

Drusilla laughed again, sounding merry as a child on the swings. “There’s looking and there’s finding, and I’m not the one who’s lost, am I?” She leaned into the cedar’s trunk, both hands caressing its bark. “Lost and found, and we both know it’s not me you’ve been searching for in the nights, all the cold nights, flesh and blood and skin. It all burned away, all the skin and the flesh and the blood and the bone and now you hunt for it every night, but you’ll not find it, nor him. Not that way.” She pushed away from the tree then, dancing lightly on her tiptoes a little ways away, to where a branch dipped low enough to tangle in her dark hair.

Buffy swallowed, mouth dry, staking Drusilla suddenly the last thing on her mind. “He did burn,” she said softly. “He’s gone now.”

Drusilla pulled the branch down in front of her, peering impishly through the green, hair tangled like a spider’s web. “ _As if you were on fire from within. The moon lives in the lining of your skin._ ” She stepped back then, glaring daggers. “He stole it, you know. Stole the words and the moon, stole under your skin, stole the treasure I’d claimed when I made him strong.” She lifted her pale face to the just-waning moon. “You’re all thieves.”

“I don’t steal.” Buffy’s hand tightened involuntarily on her stake. She remembered those words on Spike’s lips, breathed into her ear like a promise. She hadn’t known at the time they were a prophecy.

A secret smile played across Drusilla’s lips. “A thief and a liar, too,” she said, clicking her tongue in disapproval. “You stole them both, you wicked girl. Stole them and made them dust. I really am quite cross.”

“Angel chose his own path, and so did Spike,” Buffy said shortly, circling again, trying to get her head back in the game. “And Angel’s fine, last I checked. Though I hear he’s become a lawyer or something.” She hadn’t really kept up on what Angel was up to, after punching him in the nose for what the amulet had done, but Giles had said he’d keep an eye on things.

“Dust,” Drusilla said sharply, stopping Buffy in her tracks. “Dust and gone, and gone and dust, and now my boy’s gone too, the fire spit him out and he shook the dust away and left the City of Angels behind. He’s lost.”

“Yes,” Buffy said. “Burned and gone.” She’d thought she was out of tears, but she could feel them at the corners of her eyes anyhow.

“Foolish girl,” Drusilla scoffed, darting around the tree’s trunk and peeking out the other side, eyes mischievous. “Lost can be found.”

Buffy laughed, bitterness on her tongue like bile. “Not that kind of lost.”

“From the City of Angels to the City of Winds,” Drusilla sing-songed, eyes closed, swaying as if to music. “Through the eye of a needle and over the rainbow and under the tower, forever falling.”

“Okay, now you’re just making stuff up.” Buffy brandished her stake, hoping she looked more threatening than she felt. “Look, the nice ghosts that live here -- or not _live_ , but -- whatever. They’re tired of you squatting in their cemetery. Can you just take your cryptic behind off to, I don’t know, Timbuktu?” Giles might blow a gasket at her letting her go, but Buffy hadn’t lived to the ripe old age of 22 without knowing how to choose her battles. Taking on Spike’s ex while she was still tearing herself up over his death was not a winning proposition, and she knew it.

Drusilla’s eyes popped open then, fastening on Buffy’s face with frightening lucidity. “He’s looking for you,” she said clearly. “Just as you search for him. But you’re both looking in the wrong places.” Her eyes wandered off again then, like a cat distracted by a butterfly. “Miss Edith wanted you to know.”

“Did she, now?” Buffy whispered, head whirling. No way. There was no way the crazy vamp was saying what she thought she was saying. _No way._

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Drusilla pouted, eyes sullen. “But she would insist. She was really quite rude.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I must be going, now,” Drusilla said in a brisk voice, suddenly sounding like a busy socialite, fingers wiggling in a dainty farewell worthy of the Queen. “Do give him my regards.” She spun then, dreamily, her white skirts belling out about her, and with a final flash of her long white fingers she was gone.

“Well, that wasn’t freaksome at all,” Buffy grumbled, ignoring the sick anticipation in the pit of her stomach. Because there really was no way. Buffy had _felt_ Spike burn. She still had the scars on her hand. He was gone.

But her mind kept racing, as she reported back to probably-Beatrice -- who listened with relief in her eyes, as apparently the Shrouded Figure had already made a morose, broody appearance -- and then headed off down the streets towards the tube station -- it was too early for a train, but she could likely catch a cab there -- and when she was halfway there, she set her jaw and pulled out her cell phone and dialed.

“Giles? Sorry I woke you.” She really wasn’t. “Yeah, I took care of it. But, um, we need to talk. Can you call the Scoobies in the morning? Set up a meeting for, say, eight? Not the whole Council, just the old gang. There’s some stuff we need to talk about. Kind of unofficial.” She rolled her eyes at his reply. “No, I’m not going off to Greece tomorrow for another ‘sabbatical.’” She paused, then went on in a rush, before she could think better of it. “But I might be going to California.”

She flipped her phone shut and broke into a run.

END CHAPTER 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 notes: You can see some photos of Highgate Cemetery and the Circle of Lebanon here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highgate_Cemetery
> 
> Drusilla quotes Spike quoting a poem by Pablo Neruda, my favorite poet for Spuffy.


	3. Chapter 3: Needles

Spike didn’t seem to be in the mood for conversation, or for much of anything at all, and Lorne didn’t see any need to draw him out ( _ because he didn’t care, he really didn’t _ ); he watched the dim hills go past in silence, tuning out the noise as best he could and trying not to think too hard about anything at all. Counting the bushes helped; there were lots of bushes, and numbers were soothingly non-judgmental.

Lorne had counted six hundred and twenty-seven when he began to grow alarmed.

“Not to be a backseat driver,” he said, shifting awkwardly. “Especially since I’m in the front seat. But there seems to be a road hazard coming up.”

Spike’s eyes flickered over and back, dismissively. “How so?”

“I mean, it’s not a road hazard for me,” Lorne went on, feeling his voice accelerate. “But last I checked you were still a vampire.”

“That I am.”

“And the windshield of this car is made of glass.”

“That it is,” Spike grinned, easing the car into a wide curve.

“And the sun is coming up!” Lorne clutched at the dash, watching as the road curved around into a patch of sunlight.

“Oh, come on,” Spike laughed madly, accelerating into the light. “Live dangerously for once.” And his face was bathed in the glow of the morning sun.

Lorne lunged out to grab the steering wheel, hoping against hope he could reach it before Spike’s hands crumbled to dust, but weirdly, Spike’s hands didn’t show any signs of crumbling, just kept on gripping the steering wheel. The sunlight made the bruises and abrasions look even worse.

After a few seconds of hands-not-crumbling, Spike started to laugh again; Lorne awkwardly released the wheel, sinking back into his seat.

“Sorry, mate,” Spike said, not sounding especially sorry at all. “Thought you knew this was a company vehicle. Glass is all necro-tempered. Safe as houses for a vamp.” He lifted one hand, gazing at the light playing over it.

“Wait, this car belongs to Wolfram and Hart?” The velour upholstery under his keister suddenly made Lorne’s skin crawl.

“Mine now,” Spike shrugged.

“Doesn’t it have, I don’t know, LoJack or something?” Lorne craned his neck to look back down the road. “Not too keen on a high speed pursuit.”

“Fair certain Wolfram and Hart’s got more on their mind right now than tracking down the black sheep of their executive fleet,” Spike breezed, tossing an arm over the back of the seat. “Doubt they’ll even miss it for weeks. Expect by then I’ll be able to work something out, or have it at a chop shop.”

“You hope.” Lorne glanced behind them again. The road was still empty, half of it still in the shadows of the hills. 

“Hope’s not a thing I’m known for,” Spike said blandly. 

“No, I suppose not.” Lorne mostly knew him for being a pain in Angel’s ass, though occasionally in recent months he’d glimpsed glimmers of more. Confusing glimmers, because they didn’t always mesh with what Angel had shared about his vampiric descendant. What had Angel said? He’d said something about-- 

_ Oh, no. No no no. Just stop that train of thought right there, Lorniecakes. Angel is not a part of your world any more, he doesn’t deserve any real estate in your brain. Wash that vamp right out of your hair and think about something, anything, that isn’t Angel. In fact, don’t even think his name any more. Forget Voldemort, there’s a new He Who Shall Not Be Named in town. _

_ No more thinking the A-word. _

“Angel, he had hope,” Spike said, having apparently not gotten the memo from Lorne’s brain yet. “Look where it got him!”

Lorne turned pointedly away and stared out the window. There were still an awful lot of bushes to count, and that was way more important than thinking about the unthinkable.

_ Six hundred twenty-eight…. _

*

Spike was smart enough by now to know when he was being given the brush-off -- he’d learned a bit since his mawkish, blind adoration for Cecily -- and it sort of pissed him off, that even the Angelette who’d had too much of Angel (if he’d read that last huddle correctly) still couldn’t be arsed to give him the time of day, but at the same time, he was feeling weirdly free. The kind of free that came with total loss, of course, but he’d take the miniscule upside to the black hole gaping in his heart now. 

In the meantime, driving in the sun was fascinating.

He’d seen photographs, of course -- even experienced more of the sun than was strictly healthy for a vampire -- but there was a big difference between shuttered glimpses and coffee table books and the reality of a sun-drenched world filling his entire vision. He’d not taken time to enjoy it during his brief ownership of the Gem of Amara, in his rush to find the slayer. 

He supposed the vista of mediocre hills dotted with scrubby bushes wasn’t particularly exciting to the more jaded sun-dwellers, but after more than a century in the dark, just the way the morning sun sent long fingers of shadows tracing the contours of the ground was novel and intriguing, the colors of the world like an alien landscape, rushing past at speeds undreamed of in his human days. This was the unlife, out on the open road, footloose and fancy free, nothing holding him back from going wherever the whim took him.

Needles was a whim, possibly a laughable one, but it was something his brain had latched on to when he’d stopped for petrol, studying the faded map posted outside the gas station.

“Why the bloody hell not?” he’d muttered, jotted down the route, and been off.

He hadn’t expected to find another tattered remnant of Angel’s bloody mission along the way, but he supposed it made a twisted sense. Sod’s Law had kept sucking him back into Angel’s world, and apparently Sod’s Law wasn’t letting go of him so easily, like dog shit on the sole of a boot. But he could find a place to scrape the Host off his Doc Martens -- someplace safe, of course, the fellow had always been reasonably cordial to him -- and then he’d be alone, the way he was always meant to be, a lone wolf traveling each and every highway.

It was going to be fucking brilliant.

He kept repeating that in his head.

Fucking. Brilliant.

And if the company was less-than-convivial, the ride was smooth as Bu-- butter, and sweet as Bu-- sweet as-- god, he needed to stop trying to think of similes, his brain was stuck on past sweetness and he was driving forward into the future, the free future, leaving his baggage behind, and all he really wanted to think about was how bloody fantastic the hum of the motor felt. The dash of the ‘61 was a good deal posher than his own Fireflite had been, tricked out with gleaming textured chrome and cunning details, the speedometer wide and prominent right under the windshield, all of it polished as if it were new, and the car responded to his slightest touch like-- like--

_ All right, _ he told himself.  _ You may as well just accept it. This bloody car is as close to Buffy as you’re ever likely to get again, and you might as well enjoy it. DeSoto in the hand, et cetera, et cetera. No need to stay all obsessed with someone who likely never shed a tear when you were gone. _

A tiny, tentative voice at the back of his head piped up.  _ She was crying when you last saw her face. She cried and she said-- _

_ Shut it!  _ he snapped at his stupider inner self.  _ She was bleeding and burning and her eyes were probably all full of smoke from the vamp barbecue. She wasn’t crying for you. _

He’d wager she’d weep when she heard about--

Open road. Open road, lone wolf, no strings. Just the way he liked it.

He popped the Circle Jerks cassette out of the player -- he was already bored of that ironic choice anyhow -- and replaced it with  _ The Great Rock ‘N Roll Swindle _ . 

Lorne sighed audibly as the orchestra started playing  _ God Save the Queen _ , though he started to shift uncomfortably when the spoken word part started up. For a singer, he was woefully uneducated on the classics, Spike sniffed to himself, but that wasn’t the song he even wanted to hear; he waited for the last notes of the orchestra to fade away, and punched “reverse” on the player. (Bloody brilliant work, they way they’d made the tape deck blend in with the vintage dashboard; even the buttons looked like 1961.)

Sid Vicious’s voice rolled out of the speakers in less-than-subtle mockery of Frank Sinatra’s vibrato.

“And now, the end is near…”

Spike could practically hear Lorne’s wince across the bench seat of the car.

_ Sid had it bloody right, _ he thought darkly, foot heavy on the accelerator.  _ From now on, I’ll do it my way. _

*

Great purple spotted Dalmations, Spike was trying to kill him.

He didn’t know which was worse, the part where the atrocious singer was pretending to be Sinatra, or the part where the atrocious singer dropped the parody and just started screaming, but in the end all of it just gave him a blinding headache, exacerbated by the waves of despair and grief and rage practically rolling off his vamp chauffeur. It was a good thing Spike wasn’t singing, or Lorne would likely be forced to leap from the vehicle, all action-movie style, except he had no idea how to tuck and roll or whatever the stunt guys did and would just end up as a smear of pesto on the asphalt.

He didn’t even have the luxury of counting bushes any more; they’d emerged from the hills and out onto a straight stretch of highway, a frontage road on either side of that, and the scenery had given way to desert, flat as a pancake. Flatter. Flat as a pancake that had been run over by a semi truck.

“Gods, I need a latte,” he muttered when the hellacious screaming finally ended.The tape whirred and clicked and then the symphony started up again.

Spike shrugged. “Can stop somewhere. Not like we’re in a hurry.”

Lorne glanced out the window as an exit rolled past. Ranchero Road. He shuddered. Hadn’t taken them long to get out to the boonies, far from the neon-lit civilization he’d found so comfortingly unlike home. He doubted they’d be able to find-- “Oh! There’s a Starbucks!”

Spike glanced over. “Already past that exit, mate. But I’ll pull over next one, see what we can find.”

Lorne suppressed a sigh as Spike abruptly dove across two lanes of traffic to get to the right-hand lane. It wasn’t like Starbucks was  _ good  _ coffee, he comforted himself. Just that the slightly-burned java flavor would be something familiar in this desert wasteland. Maybe this next exit would have something better. He couldn’t hope for the level of G&B or M Street Café, or even his own barista at Caritas, but he could live without the artisanal almond extract and the deft foam art if he just had something drinkable.

Unfortunately, when Spike zoomed off onto the exit for 395, it just looked like more wasteland.

“Are you sure this is a good move? Looking for a latte, not a landfill.”

“There’s a place up ahead. Can see the sign.”

“Starbucks?”

“Pilot.”

“Pilot? Never heard of that café.”

“Not a café,” Spike said jovially. “But they have coffee.”

Lorne watched aghast as they pulled into a huge parking lot that was literally filled with huge semi trucks. It was like a gas station, except a gas station on steroids, everything taller and wider and vaguely intimidating, like it was there for the service of giants, not the merely six-foot-two like Lorne himself.

“What is that?” he squeaked.

“That,” Spike grinned, “is what Americans call a truck stop.”

“A truck stop,” Lorne repeated nervously. “For trucks?”

“They allow civilians in on occasion. If we look mean enough.” But Spike swerved off to the right instead of closer to the refueling behemoth, screeching into a parking space on the shaded west side of a smaller building. A red sign on the side of the building proclaimed OUTPOST CAFE in the kind of letters that belonged on a Wanted! sign in a bad Western. “See?” he said smugly. “Found you a cafe.”

“I don’t know,” Lorne said dubiously, feeling vaguely unnerved by the rustic beams and stonework. They had to be an architectural fashion statement, not a necessity, which boded poorly for the coffee served within. “Why is there a bench made out of logs?”

“Ambiance,” Spike said sagely.

“They forgot the accent mark over the _ e _ ,” Lorne grumbled.

“There’s two kinds of cafés,” Spike breezed, running a hand over his tousled hair. “The kind that put accent marks over their e’s, and the kind that don’t. ‘Fraid to tell you, the first kind’s not likely to serve folks looking like us, not outside of the big city.”

“Oh, come on, you’re a perfectly handsome…” Spike turned so Lorne could see how his black eye had bloomed just in their short drive. “Right. Suppose you do look rather like you got run over by a truck. Hence the truck stop.”

“Yeah. And I got news for you, they’re likely not used to the green, either.”

Lorne sighed. “Has it been said that it’s not easy being green?”

“Might have been, once or twice before.” Spike slapped Lorne on the shoulder, bracingly. “Don’t worry, once you have some caffeine in your system, perhaps some huevos rancheros, you’ll be… Well, you’ll still be green, but perhaps a little brighter.” Spike tilted his head, considering. “Maybe closer to emerald than sage.” He glanced outside at the shaded lot. “In the meantime, I estimate just about two hours before the path to our parking space becomes just a tad bit too sunny for yours truly. Shall we?”

Lorne secretly doubted that anything other than a three-day spa treatment complete with acupuncture and a three-hour mud bath could improve his color, but caffeine would definitely be a good start. “I suppose.”

The interior was clean and worn, done up almost entirely in shades of brown, except for red checked curtains and a massive red bandanna that festooned the neck of a deer head mounted prominently on the wall. Lorne shuddered at the sight, looking quickly away from the glass marble eyes, instead scanning the array of faded black and white photographs that densely covered the wood paneling, a motley assortment of vintage cowboys, signed photos of country music stars and rodeo queens, and a few movie stills from  _ The Wizard of Oz _ \- the brown parts, of course, not the loving Technicolor. Still, Judy Garland. That was one thing he had in common with the place.

That and the brown. 

Lorne sighed.  _ Might as well embrace my inner bleah _ , he thought, and followed Spike past the sign that encouraged them to “Seat yourself, pardner!” to a booth in the corner, thankfully far from the taxidermy. 

As Lorne awkwardly slid into the booth, Spike tugged a couple of plastic-coated menus from behind the napkin holder, sliding one across the table. “Order what you want, mate. My treat.”

Lorne cocked an eyebrow at that. “You have money?”

“Corporate credit card.”

“Well in that case you’re not technically treating. I could use my own-- wait. When did they issue you a corporate credit card? You never signed a contract with Wolfram and Hart.”

“Nicked the boss’s a week or so back. Wanker never even noticed.”

Lorne could think of a dozen snappy comebacks to that, but they all required him to speak about, refer to, or think about He Who Shall Not Be Named, and so he just flipped through the menu, searching for the coffee selection. Maybe it wasn’t a latte he needed, lattes were light and frothy and full of good cheer. He needed something sharper, something more bitter to match his mood. Maybe a double espresso, or  _ ooh!  _ He could go for a Turkish coffee, all spiced and so thick you had to chew it….

He stared uncomprehendingly at the “Wet Yer Whistle” section of the menu. “It just says Hot Coffee,” he muttered. “Do they have a separate coffee menu, or something?” He hopefully riffled through the remaining menus.

Spike shot him a sardonic look. “Expect they just have plain old coffee.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had that.” Off Spike’s raised eyebrows, he shrugged defensively. “From another dimension, sweetcakes. And I popped right into downtown LA, with a café to make you weep for joy on every corner. Accent marks over all the e’s. Why would I ever look for something ordinary?”

Spike glanced past Lorne then, teeth bared in a grin, and Lorne tensed, imagining a team of assassins come to track them down, but it was just the waitress, dolled up in cowboy boots, a long denim skirt, and a plaid button-down that managed to be just the wrong shade of red to go with the curtains. She was the kind of middle-aged pretty that had likely looked middle-aged when she was twenty, and would likely still look pretty when she was seventy. She smiled brightly enough, but Lorne noticed she stood a few feet back from the table. Her name tag read “Lynett” in cursive that he realized was rendered like a rope, the L topped with a lasso loop.

“What can I get you cowboys to drink?”

“Oh, I’m not a cowb-- I mean, yeah, the brown leather is kind of on-theme, but then there’s the paisley, and the boots are all wrong, and….” He trailed off at her wry look. “And you just call everyone ‘cowboy,’ don’t you? I’m sorry, it’s been a long night. A long year.” He sighed. “I’ll, um, have coffee.” 

“You sure?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows. “You’re looking a little green to me.”

“Yeah, uh, costume party.”

She shrugged, apparently unconcerned, and turned to Spike.

“Hot chocolate,” he said with a smile that tried very hard to be winning but the bruises turned ghastly. “Mini marshmallows if you have them. Tell me, pet. Can a fellow get something off the dinner menu this time of morning?”

“Might take a bit longer, but yeppers.”

“Brilliant,” he sighed. “I’ll have an order of Buffalo wings to start, then. Extra spicy.” 

Lorne turned back to the beginning of the menu while Lynett sauntered off in her boots. “Please tell me they have something that isn’t heartburn-on-a-platter here.”

“Unlikely. Food’s probably good, though. You don’t last decades feeding truck drivers if the food’s not good.”

Lorne skimmed over the menu, eyes catching on a few more frightening items - Divorced Eggs? Road Kill Omelette? Really? The “Build Yer' Own Omelette” had promise, but Lorne wasn’t sure he could in good conscience order an item with “Yer’” in the name. On the next page, though, he found Big Mike’s Eggs Benedict, which was still likely to give him heartburn but he’d take Hollandaise heartburn over deep-fried-meat heartburn any day. He just hoped Big Mike knew how to poach an egg.

He was going to read further, just to see what else he could find, but was distracted by a numbered list just under the eggs.

“Cowperson’s Creed?” he read with a short laugh. “Man, good thing they don’t know what cows were where I come from.”

“What were they?” Spike asked vaguely, still perusing the menu.

“Humans.” 

“That would definitely give this establishment a different theme.”

“Item one. Dare to be a cowperson.” Lorne closed the menu. “Please tell me they mean that ironically.”

“Hardly,” Spike snorted. “Here, let me read you the legend of the Outpost Cafe.”

“There’s a legend?”

“Right here.” Flipping over the menu, Spike began to read off the back in a low voice, putting on possibly the worst fake accent Lorne had ever heard -- which was saying something after his months in the Entertainment Division. “Long ago in a far away desert, a vast land, there wandered a man, a missionary soul among the native people of the Mojave. A man of great faith, Father Guido Junipero and his burro Pancho traveled for days living on fresh game, snakes, and roadrunner stew. This poor father suffered from indigestion while his burro suffered under him. One evening around a campfire, after a particular fine meal of jack rabbit stew, Father Guido passed gas and--”

“I think I’ve heard enough,” Lorne interrupted. 

“You sure? It’s quite the stirring tale. Answers all your  _ burning  _ questions why this is--” He shifted back to his deep, fake accent. “--’The Place for meetin’, eatin’, and gettin’ gas.’”

“There are some questions best left unanswered.” Lorne crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair. It was almost like double vision, Spike’s manic cheer contrasted with the nihilistic aura coming out of his pores, but that was another question best left unanswered, Lorne was absolutely determined not to ask it, and in the meantime, he could ride a wave of bitter  _ bonhomie  _ as far as Needles. He hoped. “So, how far is it to Needles?”

“Couple hours, I think. Never been there before.” Spike flipped open his menu again. “This place really has quite the mythos going. I think I should like to subscribe to their newsletter. Or would, if I had an address they could send it. I might indeed dare to be a cowperson. And look at item the second. Buck the rules.” 

“Like a bronco?”

“See, and there’s your irony. An exhortation to -- following the obvious wordplay -- fuck the rules, right at the top of a list of rules.”

Lorne opened his menu up again. “‘Three, stay balanced in the saddle. Four, ride the trail of adventure. Five, dream as big as the Mojave Desert.’ Well, either this is some sort of new-age cowperson Tony Robbins, or some sort of cowperson Masters and Johnson.” He was in no mood to think about big dreams or adventure. 

Spike didn’t seem inclined to dwell on positive thinking either. “I, for one, have always, number seven, attacked life like it’s a thousand-pound steer, from the day that I died.”

“But do you, item eight, saddle your own horse?” Lynett returned to the table then, deftly balancing a tray with two brightly-colored Fiestaware mugs. She slid the red one in front of Lorne, setting down a yellow cream pitcher beside it. “Thanks, crumbcake.”

“My pleasure, hon. Wings’ll be out in a few. Y’all ready to order?”

Spike wrapped his hands around his own blue mug. “I’ll have the sirloin with eggs, scrambled. Steak rare as it can come. Substitute onion rings for the side, there’s a love.”

“Can do.” She turned her smile back on Lorne.

Lorne ordered his Eggs Benedict, unaccountably a little miffed that she was treating him like a normal customer instead of a scary green monster. He was feeling like a monster, shouldn’t the real world accommodate him? Instead -- well, if he didn’t know better he’d think Lynett was actually flirting with him. She even gave him a wink before she strolled off with their order.

“Lots of demons drive trucks, you know.”

“Excuse me?” His eyes went back to Spike, who was regarding him in amusement.

“Truck driving’s one of those jobs works well for the more peaceful demons. Lots of alone time, don’t have to deal with customers much. Bird’s probably served a lot worse than a green-skinned fellow in designer togs. Think she fancies you.”

“You’re the one who told me they weren’t used to green people,” Lorne grumbled.

“Said they  _ likely  _ weren’t,” Spike corrected, looking smug. “That’s part of my creed. Item the first, always expect strangers  _ not  _ to receive you kindly. That way you’re prepared for the angry mob.”

Instead of replying to that infuriating statement, Lorne glared at his cup of black coffee and the pitcher of cream. How did one know how much to add? And how much of that canister-sugar equalled two pumps of Torani? Finally he just poured some of the cream in, stirring until it seemed an appropriately creamy color, and then a two-second pour of the sugar. Maybe now the coffee wouldn’t kill him? He took a sip.

Well. It wasn’t M Street Café, but it wasn’t terrible. Too much sugar. He sipped some more, the smell of the coffee soothing. 

“Here’s one you’ll find right up your alley,” Spike continued after a good swig of his own mug. “Item the tenth. Dress for success--” He paused dramatically before intoning, “ _ \--the Cowperson’s way. _ ”

“What does that even mean?”

Spike glanced around. “From what I see… denim, plaid, and a whole lot of leather.”

Lorne flipped his duster’s lapel. “ _ Brown _ leather?”

“Well, yeah. Black leather is for, well, folks like me.” Spike narrowed his eyes judiciously. “You’d look good in plaid.”

That made it official. Spike  _ was _ trying to kill him.

*

Spike was trying not to think about things, but it was bloody difficult when everything around him made him think about things. Even that bloody inane “Cowperson’s Creed.”

Where had dreaming big ever gotten him? On fire, like he’d gone out to bloody  _ stand _ in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Where had riding the trail of adventure gotten him? Bruised and beaten and overlooked by a bloody diner waitress in favor of a green demon with bloody horns. (Not that he was looking for a shag, mind you, but a fellow liked to at least be considered. And Lynett looked like she could ride a fellow off into the sunset, the saucy minx.)

He wasn’t even touching Item Fifteen, “ride beside your woman or man.” He’d been bloody devoted to Drusilla for how long? And then he’d been Buffy’s right-hand man, sure, until she’d passed on that bloody piece of jewelry from bloody Angel and he’d  _ burned up _ beside his woman and she’d just kept on riding like he’d been nothing. Though he supposed it was fitting, that his last view of her -- distant and obscured -- she’d been dancing, just out of reach. She’d been dancing the first time he saw her, dancing and laughing and if he’d known then what he knew now, he’d have turned around and walked right out the door and taken Drusilla to a different Hellmouth to get her well, except then he’d never have danced with Buffy himself, danced in battle and danced between the sheets and under the carpets and…. 

He suddenly realized he’d never actually gotten to dance with her, not to music, and that punch in the gut sucked him the rest of the way into the maelstrom that was Thinking About Buffy, and he surrendered to it, closing his eyes and drinking his chocolate and waiting for the madness to pass, and when the deluge of Buffy-thoughts receded -- not vanished, oh no, he always had at least tidepools of Buffy-thoughts lingering, but at least he wasn’t drowning any more -- he opened his eyes and grinned at Mr. Greenjeans across the way, like nothing had happened.

Really, nothing had. Nothing that hadn’t happened every night since he’d stumbled straight from burning agony into Angel’s desk. He was used to it by now.

Lorne was watching him across the table with some weird combination of resentment, sympathy, and confusion. “How’s your hot chocolate?” he asked in a voice like creamed spinach.

“Could use more marshmallows,” Spike replied, just as blandly. “Perhaps you could sweet-talk our lovely waitress when she brings out the wings? She likes you better.”

“Really? Well, okay, I can see it. I may be green, but at least I don’t look like the living embodiment of the Road Kill Omelette. Blood and all.”

“Am I bleeding again? Spike poked at his split lip experimentally; it twinged with pain but didn’t seem to be oozing.

“No, it’s--” Lorne gestured vaguely at his own head. “There’s some, uh, crusties. In your hair. Doesn’t add much sex appeal.”

“Depends on who’s looking,” he grinned, but ran his fingers through his hair anyhow, snagging some of the offending grunge and peering at it. Human, it looked like, so not from any of the demons they’d fought back in LA; he took a sniff.

_ Wide, incredulous eyes. “I can’t believe it. It really happened! Just wait until I tell--” Jealousy exhaustion rage despair disdain joy and then horror, oh god, the blood was so warm-- _

Spike snatched a paper napkin from the dispenser, scrubbing the dried blood harshly off his fingers. “Well, can’t have the ladies thinking I’m a dangerous vampire. Excuse me while I pop off to the loo.”

He made sure to swagger as he walked off, flashing Lynett an unrepentant grin along the way, coolly favoring the other patrons of the establishment with appropriate sneering disdain and suggestive glances. 

He didn’t break until he was behind the rough wooden door labeled DUDES.

He locked the door -- buggers could bloody well wait -- and clutched the sides of the sink and curled over, body wracked with silent sobs, and when he’d let the spasms run their course, he straightened and ran the cold water, combing wet fingers through his hair over and over and over until he was fair certain he’d got all the blood out of it, and then he washed his hands and washed his hands again and washed his face and his throat for good measure and scrubbed himself dry with a handful of paper towels, and then he lifted his chin and rolled his shoulders and puffed out his chest and unlocked the door, swaggering back to the corner booth.

Lorne looked at him steadily as he slid into his seat, but all he said was, “Your hair is curly.”

Spike shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“It looks good curly.”

“Think our lovely waitress will change her loyalties, then?”

“Well, you still look like you got hit by a truck.”

“Some folks find that appealing.” He forced a grin. “Been told I look hot as fuck when I’m a tad bruised up.”

“No accounting for taste,” Lorne replied, eyes skittering away like rabbits. “Take  _ Cats _ , for example. Or Webber’s entire  _ oeuvre _ , for that matter. A career entirely built around plastering half-stolen melodies and hackneyed genre simplifications on thinly-developed themes and shock value, and dressing it all up in fuzzy legwarmers. Not to mention other things that my non-disclosure agreement forbids me to disclose.”

“Sacrificed a few virgins for a Tony, did he?”

“Heavens to Murgatroyd, what part of ‘non-disclosure agreement’ did you not understand?” Lorne took a drink of his coffee. “And it was more of a soul-selling deal, from what I read.”

Souls were another thing Spike had no intention of discussing with the Host; fortunately, Lynett brought him his wings just then and he had the best of excuses to stop talking. She topped off Lorne’s coffee at the same time and slid a bowl of mini-marshmallows onto the table next to Spike’s mug; apparently some sweet-talking had gone on while he was gone. 

Bugger. How long had he been gone?

“Thanks, love,” he said automatically, dumping the whole bowl of marshmallows into his chocolate. They started to melt, and he sighed in relief. Hadn’t been that long, then, or the drink would have cooled. He’d have to watch it if he started losing time, though. Had places to be, couldn’t afford to be trapped by the sun.

Well, all right, he didn’t have  _ specific  _ places to be, but he wanted to keep moving. Moving was good. Trapped was bad, trapped was boring, trapped meant you had nothing to do but think about the things you didn’t want to think about and he wasn’t going to think about them he was going to eat his bloody hot wings and his bloody steak and his bloody eggs and when his tastebuds had been sated he’d sate his hunger with the blood in his cooler and then he’d hit the bloody road again, finish out the Cowperson’s Creed once and for all.

Wasn’t a bloody chance in hell he’d be able to recharge his “cowperson spirit,” item the sixteenth, but the last item on the Creed he was sure he’d have covered.

Whatever lay down the road, he was sure as fuck going to die with his boots on.

*

Lorne glared at his coffee, which had previously been tolerably -- if not perfectly -- sweetened and creamed, and now had been returned to mystery levels of drinkability due to the unexpected topping off. Was this how “ordinary coffee” worked? A constant Russian roulette of sweetness levels? He sighed and added another dollop of cream and a couple seconds of sugar and stirred. This uncertainty was just not good for his blood pressure. No wonder truckers were always grumpy stubbly guys in the movies; it was a miracle more of them weren’t serial killers. He sipped cautiously.

Ugh. Too much sugar again.

Spike was methodically demolishing his plate of hot wings across the way, licking his fingers every so often, which gave Lorne a weird feeling of disconnect.

“Don’t you drink blood?” he asked when about half the wings had been reduced to clean bones. “Ang-- I thought vampires didn’t need to eat people food.”

Spike raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I drink blood. ‘People food,’ as you put it, doesn’t do much for my hunger, and I’ve a cool box of blood in the boot of the DeSoto for that. But not a lot of variety to blood -- especially when you’re bagging it, like yours truly. Gets boring after a century or so.” He shrugged thoughtfully, dredging another wing in the sauce on the plate. “People don’t technically need ‘people food,’ either. Modern science could make up some kibble like they do for puppies and such if all people wanted was nutrition and sustenance. And yet we have  _ haute cuisine _ , a thousand different regional specialties, the Iron Chef. Food ain’t just for the body, it’s for the soul, and for pleasure.” He nodded towards Lorne’s disappointing cup of Coffee Roulette. “You could get your caffeine from a pill, yeah? But you’d rather have a cup of coffee, and have it taste good.”

“I thought--” Lorne broke off. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named had once said human food just tasted like ashes to him, but to argue about it would mean naming him, so he let the point go. If Spike said he liked food, it wasn’t Lorne’s business to care why. Especially since he was done with caring about just about anything, forever.

The rest of their food arrived then, and Spike addressed himself to his steak with every appearance of enjoyment, and so Lorne shrugged and attacked his own food. Big Mike did indeed know how to poach an egg, and Lorne ate swiftly, dredging the muffin through the last remnants of Hollandaise. 

“Wow,” said Lynett when she came to top off his coffee yet again. “You cowboys sure were hungry. Can I get you anything else?”

“Sorry, stress eater,” Lorne said lamely. “Thanks, but any more of Big Mike’s cooking and I’ll need to have my whole wardrobe retailored.” He glared at his once-again-brimming coffee cup.

“Got to go. Shade’s a-burning,” Spike said, wiping off his own fingers. “Here, love, put it all on this.” He held out the card casually.

Lynett looked at the card with raised eyebrows. “Just Angel? No last name?”

“It’s pronounced An-hel,” Spike breezed. “‘M from Spain. Bit of a celebrity there.”

“Uh-huh.” She shrugged and took off with a wink at Lorne.

Lorne glared at his coffee. “Now I know how Sisyphus felt,” he grumbled, reaching once again for the creamer. 

“Just drink it, mate. Not keen on getting trapped here by the sun. That deer’s got the crazy eyes.”

Lorne sighed and just took a drink of the coffee. 

Oh.

“Ye gods and little fishes,” he murmured, gazing at his mug. “It’s perfect.”

Spike grinned. “Told you this place would be good. Now let’s hit the road.” He signed “Angel” on the credit card receipt with a flourish as Lorne quaffed down the rest of his perfect cup of coffee. He couldn’t help smiling as he set down the mug. He, Krevlornswath of the Deathwok Clan, had successfully made Ordinary Coffee into Perfect Coffee.

Now, if he only knew how to recreate it.

Outside the restaurant, Spike paused and stared at their car. The shade had shrunk considerably while they were in the restaurant, and although the body of the DeSoto was still vampire-safe, the trunk was gleaming in sunlight now.

“Bugger,” Spike muttered. “Think you can fetch me some blood from the cool box? Don’t fancy burning to a crisp just now.”

Lorne took the keys gingerly and popped open the trunk. “Could almost fit my Volvo in here,” he muttered as he opened the new-looking Coleman cooler. It was full to the brim with sealed bags of blood, labeled with animal types; a faint hiss and trickle of cool vapor hinted at some dry ice somewhere in the mix. “What are you feeling like? Buffalo? Uh, does that one say Otter?”

“Pig’ll do me,” Spike muttered, suddenly surly. “Let’s go.”

Lorne grimaced as he fished out a bag of pig’s blood, closing the cooler. That was when he realized the cavernous trunk was otherwise completely empty.

“Didn’t you pack a change of clothes?” He tossed the bag to Spike before shutting the trunk with a slam.

“No time to pack,” Spike said shortly, chest hitching defensively. “Got everything I need, anyhow. Blood and music and the open road.” He sniffed and got into the car, slamming the door.

“Well, don’t expect me to share my Armani,” Lorne grumbled to himself, walking around the car to his own door. “Your legs aren’t long enough.”

Spike didn’t even look at him when he got into the car, just shifted into gear the moment the door was closed, screeching out of the parking lot and back onto the highway.

Half a mile down the road, Lorne sighed at the sight of a billboard. 

_ Starbucks Next Exit! _ it proclaimed, beside a mouth-watering photograph of a perfect latte.

“Of course.”

*

Spike drank his blood quickly and got down to the serious business of driving. When he was alone he liked to sing along with Sid and Johnny, but he wasn’t in the mood to be judged by the Host today -- for his vocals or his emotions -- and so he satisfied himself with drumming on the steering wheel while he gazed around at the scenery. Lorne seemed just as content not to speak, just staring out the window and occasionally wincing at Sid’s voice, though he seemed less offended by Johnny Rotten. Spike eventually took pity on him, popping out the cassette after the next play of “My Way” and moving on to Public Image Limited, which was just as nihilistic as Sex Pistols but ten times as intelligent.  _ First Issue _ was just right for Spike’s current mood anyhow; he could identify with Johnny’s diatribes against Malcolm McLaren right at the moment, that was for certain.

He didn’t sing, but he certainly lip-synced a few of the more pertinent lyrics.

They stopped at a Shell in Barstow for Lorne to piss -- or whatever his bloody species did after drinking three cups of coffee -- and to top off the DeSoto’s petrol. Spike raced into the minimart for some Takis Fuego and a California Road Atlas, as well as some tourist fliers, so he could scout out Needles a bit. Not exactly a bustling metropolis, he noted with a frown, but it seemed to have what he needed, and a little bonus besides; by the time the Host had returned he was impatient to hit the road again.

It didn’t take long, though, before the scenery ceased to amuse; there was only so much entertainment scrub-dotted desert could provide, even with the novelty of sunlight. Lorne occasionally tried to make conversation, but Spike was still feeling surly and eventually the Host gave up, gazing out at the passing desert. Spike thought he heard him counting under his breath.

A couple of awkwardly-silent hours later, they reached the first exit for Needles. True to the road atlas, there didn’t seem to be much to the town when they finally arrived, just more desert, though signs at the exits promised such fine amenities as McDonalds and Circle K. Spike drove on to the exit he’d marked and headed down the ramp.

“Oh, are we there?” Lorne said, sounding relieved. “Please tell me there’s a Starbucks.”

Spike doubted it -- Needles looked to be a no-Starbucks town -- but he really didn’t care. Wasn’t a town in California small enough not to sell booze, and that was all he really cared about. He slowed perfunctorily for the stop sign before heading on to his destination, pulling in the marked gate in the chain-link fence. 

Lorne frowned, reading aloud the green sign by the gate. “‘Notice: all flowers must be removed by 12 noon Wednesday for mowing on Thursday.’” He looked around curiously. “Where are we?”

“Needles Riverview Cemetery,” Spike said shortly, glaring around in disappointment as he proceeded slowly along the drive.

“Doesn’t look like any cemetery I’ve ever seen,” Lorne replied dubiously. “Not that I’ve ever been to a cemetery, but I’ve seen movies. Where are the gravestones and mausoleums and angel statues? There’s just flowers stuck in the ground.”

“One of those bloody newfangled cemeteries,” Spike growled, frustration rising. “Headstones are set into the ground so they can run a bloody mower over them. No bloody style at all.” There didn’t even seem to be an older section of the cemetery where more traditional monuments lingered; everything had been upgraded. Spike wondered grouchily if it had been just for the mowers, or if they’d made the decision to curb a local vampire problem by denying them locations to squat. Not that vamps needed mausoleums specifically; they just fit the idiom best.

He continued around the drive as it turned, the avenue slightly shaded by squat, shaggy, untrimmed palm trees, until it exited back out onto the road. 

“Bloody hell,” he grumbled as he got back on Broadway. “Well, on to Plan B.”

A few blocks down, he found the road he was seeking and turned on to it.

“Spikes Road?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Yeah.”

Lorne raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment further.

They drove past a solitary water tank, and a dull beige office building, a turnoff for Shulz Road, and a few duller residences, and then the pavement abruptly ended, some tire tracks extending out into the desert going god-knew-where.

Spike screeched to a halt at the edge of the pavement, shifting into park and staring bleakly out at the scrubby bushes and sand, resentful of the blue sky and the fluffy white clouds that floated optimistically overhead. Lorne stared right along with him, looking confused. 

There went Plan B. Which, to be fair, hadn’t really been much of a plan, just a vague notion. He didn’t have a Plan C yet.

He continued to stare at the desert, unable to think what to do next.

After a minute or so, Lorne cleared his throat. “So, are we there yet?”

“Suppose we are.”

“This is where we were going?”

“Seems that way.”

Lorne turned and glared at him. “You’re telling me you drove all the way to Needles, a place which -- just from what I have seen -- deserves the acronym BFE more than any place I have ever been or hope to ever be, just so that you could drive to the end of a dead-end road that has your name on it?”

Spike sighed. “Was planning on settling down. Find myself a nice mausoleum, make a deal with the local slaughterhouse for blood. But there’s no bloody mausoleums in the bloody cemetery.”

“But why here? Why not, I don’t know, Seattle, or Vegas, or San Francisco, or -- well, anywhere but here?”

“Because,” Spike sniffed sullenly. “This is where Spike lived.”

“Spike lived here? Spike who? Spike Milligan? Spike Spiegel?”

“Spike the bloody dog,” he muttered.

“A... dog named Spike.”

“Bloody hell, don’t you read? Bloody Snoopy’s bloody brother Spike lived here. In a bloody hollowed out cactus.”

Lorne pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, a pained look on his face. “Let me get this straight. You chose this godforsaken town as your future place of residence because it is the home of a minor character from Peanuts?”

Spike shrugged defensively. “Had to go somewhere. Saw it on a map, thought it might be bloody fate sending me a message. ” He glared at Lorne pointedly. “Where exactly were  _ you  _ planning to go?”

Lorne sighed, sinking despondently back in his seat. “Hell if I know. Just… away.” He laughed bitterly. “Think you can find space in your cactus for a roomie?”

“Hardly. And I wasn’t planning on finding an actual bloody cactus. Too much sun in the desert for my health.” Spike glared back over his shoulder. “This bloody town hasn’t even got a bloody shade tree, just mesquite and palm and bloody saguaro.”

“And no mausoleums.”

“Could let a flat,” Spike said with a shrug.

“I suppose you could,” Lorne replied sardonically. “But you’d still be living here.”

“True enough.” Spike sighed. “Should have known this burg would be rubbish. Truth be told, I never was one for fate.”

They sat there together in silence for a long time, continuing to stare at the dead end of Spikes Road as the sun sank down over the desert.

When the sun finally dipped below the horizon, Spike sighed and turned the key in the ignition. “Let’s go find a bloody pub. I need a drink.” There was his Plan C. Which likely should have been Plan A all along.

“I’m with you,” Lorne replied tiredly.

Spike shifted into gear.

END CHAPTER 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes:
> 
> You know what’s awesome for writing a fic like this? Google Maps. This is how I know that as one enters Victorville, CA on I-15 E/Historic Route 66, there is an exit with a Starbucks, then an exit with a Pilot truck stop and the Outpost Cafe, and then another exit with a Starbucks. Add in Street View and you can literally have a look at anyplace visible from the street itself. (I shamelessly created the interior, though, drawing liberally on cowboy things here in Tucson.)
> 
> Some images for you:
> 
> The interior of a 1961 DeSoto
> 
> https://imgur.com/zJFtTq2
> 
> https://imgur.com/kJP7DEI
> 
> https://imgur.com/aBYdHXj
> 
> The Outpost Cafe
> 
> https://imgur.com/WD7ufL0
> 
> Needles Riverview Cemetery
> 
> https://imgur.com/Qe6guY4
> 
> The point where Spikes Rd in Needles abruptly ends
> 
> https://imgur.com/oaHuFli
> 
> And here, because I love you so, is the Outpost Cafe’s website, where you can read the rest of the tale of Father Guido and Pancho, and also look at their current menu, which includes the Cowperson’s Creed. I suspect it has not changed all that much since 2004.
> 
> http://www.outpostcafe.org/
> 
> I cannot personally vouch for the quality of their food, as I have never been there, but like Spike I truly believe that a restaurant catering to truck drivers does not survive decades without having good food. Also, I am tempted to go on a road trip of my own to try Big Mike’s Eggs Benedict.
> 
> Additional disclaimer: Lorne’s views on the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber are his own and should not be construed or interpreted as the views of the author. In other words, I like Cats! Also Joseph.


	4. Chapter 4: London

When the Scoobies assembled at eight, Buffy had already been in the conference room for more than an hour, pacing. She’d tried to sleep after her unsettling encounter with Drusilla, but the cryptic words had set her mind awhirl, and she hadn’t been able to settle; she’d ended up heading down to the gym for a few rounds with the punching bag, and then spending a good two hours showering and dressing and doing her hair and makeup, because she knew by now that her brain worked best when the hair over it was perfect.

She was one-hundred-percent ready for her close-up today.

Her friends straggled in, expressions a mix of confused, worried, and nostalgic -- even though they all used London as a home base, they often travelled in the course of their work, and so it was rare that they were all in residence, and even rarer that they all managed to be in the same place at the same time. Some of that had been by design; though they’d mostly worked through the issues left over from those last days in Sunnydale, they’d found forgiveness was more of a process than a box to be ticked, and they were all still a bit tender in spots.

It had taken about ten minutes on the bus, Giles driving them steadily away from the crater that had once been Sunnydale, for the reality of what had happened to hit Buffy. She’d been letting Dawn put salve on her burned hand, after the bleeding from her stomach had been stanched, and Dawn had made some offhand comment about playing with fire, trying to lighten the mood, and Buffy had looked at the angry red skin and blisters in the shape of Spike’s fingers and realized that it was all she had left of him, that he was gone, and she’d burst into tears.

“Oh my god, am I hurting you?” Dawn had said softly, close to tears herself, and Buffy had shaken her head frantically, but the tears had kept coming, and she hadn’t been able to stop.

“I told him,” Buffy had managed to blurt out in the midst of her tears. “I told him I loved him, and he didn’t believe me, and now he’s--”

“Spike?” Dawn said, voice a little sharp. 

“He didn’t believe me,” Buffy had sniffled, trying to keep her voice down -- the bus was full of wounded and miserable slayers, and she wasn’t the only one crying now that adrenaline was fading.

“I’m not sure I believe you,” Dawn had murmured back, face halfway between confused and angry. “After what he did--” Dawn broke off, eyes shifting away.

“What?” Buffy had asked sharply. “What did he do?”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Xander told me. About the bathroom. How he tried to--”

“Xander wasn’t there,” Buffy whispered. “Xander doesn’t know what happened.”

“It’s not just that,” Dawn had mumbled, looking uncomfortable. “I mean, remember after you brought Spike back after Christmas? You’re the one who came and talked to me. You told me I had to watch out for him, that you needed him for the fight, but once a ra-- once a bad guy, always a bad guy.”

Buffy had frozen. “I never said that.”

“Yes, you did. You came to my room and--”

“I never said that,” Buffy had repeated, feeling sick. “That wasn’t me.”

“It wasn’t--” Dawn had blanched with realization. “Oh my god.”

“What else did I say to you that time?” Buffy had clenched her burned fist tight, welcoming the pain. 

Dawn didn’t answer for a long time, face still pale. “I don’t think it was just that time,” she finally said, voice broken. “You used to-- you came to talk to me a bunch of times, and I remember thinking it was weird, because you’d already told me good night, or I thought you had something to do, but…. How could it pretend to be you?”

“I died,” Buffy had said, numb. “It could take the form of anyone who’d passed away, and I was dead. Spike told me… he said the First used my form a whole bunch of times. And his as well. It came to me as me, the night before the final fight, and then again in the cavern.” She’d closed her eyes. “God, I didn’t think. I should have warned you.”

Dawn had hugged her then. “Oh, Buffy. I’m so sorry. I should have known.”

“How could you?” Buffy had sighed, feeling more sniffles coming on. “It’s not like we’ve ever had doppelgangers or body-switching or… well, okay, we have, but you still couldn’t have been expected to know.”

“But I didn’t trust you!” Dawn was sniffling now, too. “You’d come talk to me alone and you’d say one thing, and then the next day you’d be acting totally different, all gaga over Spike, and that’s why I… when things started going wrong, I thought Spike was messing you up again, that you were making super bad decisions, and that’s why I--” She broke off.

“That’s why you asked me to leave?” A stab of hurt had lanced through Buffy even as she said it; she’d come back, and she’d let her love for her sister and her friends cover up the wound of their rejection, but it still hadn’t quite healed.

Dawn pulled back then, eyes red. “Do you think it was doing the same to the rest of the gang?”

Buffy bit her lip. “I bet it was. It would have been stupid of it not to.”

Giles was driving, of course, but Xander was staring out the window bleakly, looking like he was about two inches away from his own breakdown, and Willow was alone in a seat resting while Kennedy huddled with the other new slayers, the less-injured ones, dissecting the battle; the Scoobies followed Dawn to the back of the bus and sat with Buffy, hesitantly sharing their own experiences. It was quickly clear that the First Evil had been subtly undermining the relationships within the house for some time, using Buffy’s face and voice.

“I’m so sorry, Buffy,” Willow said, tears streaking her weary face. “If anyone should have guessed, it should have been me. I’m the one who--” 

“What did it say to you?”

Willow laughed bitterly. “Just little things. Backhanded comments about control and magic, or even personal stuff. You-- it would be so sweet, telling me how it understood what I was going through, but then it would slip in something about-- I don’t know. I can’t even remember anything specific. I just remember afterwards, I’d think, why would Buffy say something hurtful like that?”

Buffy hugged her, gingerly. “I said plenty of hurtful things to your face. It’s not your fault you believed it.”

“Not hurtful like that,” Willow whispered. “When you were being the general, it made me mad sometimes, but at least I knew where you were coming from and what you were trying to do. This was just… just meanness, all dressed up in a sweet smile. Like Cordelia used to do. All passive-aggressive.”

“Yes, aggressive-aggressive is more my style,” Buffy sighed wryly. “Spike said… he said he started being able to tell us apart after a while, because the First always pretended to be nice and I just talked normal.”

Willow swallowed. “I think it might have been talking to some of the potentials, too. Kennedy mentioned a couple of things that had set her off, and, um, Rona said some things that I figured she had, you know, just misinterpreted, but then I knew you were under a lot of stress, too, and maybe not feeling real… politically correct.”

“You mean racist,” Buffy sighed. “God, no wonder she was so angry sometimes. I can only imagine what it was saying to Giles.”

“It was always about Spike, for me,” Xander said in a low voice. “Stuff about you and him I just… didn’t want to hear.” He looked away then. “About Anya, too. I should have known. You never talked about that stuff.”

Buffy sat up then, scanning the bus. “Wait. Where is Anya?” She’d seen Amanda fall, but Anya hadn’t been down in the cavern.

Xander closed his eye. “She didn’t make it.” A faint smile ghosted across his face. “Andrew said she died saving him.”

“Oh, god.” Buffy reached out for Xander and he wrapped her in his arms. Moments later, his body started to shake, and then they were both weeping, wracking sobs that were too deep to even be vocalized. Buffy was vaguely aware that Dawn and Willow had wrapped their arms around their little knot of grief, and though it didn’t make her feel any better, or fill the Spike-shaped void in her soul, it did give her strength.

“Did she know?” Buffy managed to whisper in his ear, after the initial storm had passed. “Did she know you still loved her?”

“Yeah.” Xander rumbled. “She knew. We weren’t together, but she knew.”

Buffy couldn’t describe what she was feeling then -- a muddled mess of grief and jealousy and regret and anger and even pride, the deep conviction that Spike had died a hero and Anya had, too -- and the selfish realization underlying it, that she wished they hadn’t, that they’d had more time, that she’d been brave enough to take the time earlier to actually love instead of putting it off for after the battle -- but she let it all out, a torrent of tears, and when it was done, she came back to the realization that her hand really, really hurt, and maybe she should let go of Xander’s shirt.

When she sat back, rubbing impatiently at her wet face with her not-hurt hand, Dawn was rubbing her back.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“You said that already,” Buffy sniffled. “And I get it. Even without the First’s manipulation, I wasn’t exactly Miss Congeniality this past year. I get why people were sick of following my orders. I got it even then.”

“Not for the kicking you out thing. I mean, yes, I’m sorry for that, but that’s not what I meant.” Dawn rubbed her hand in a gentle circle. “I’m sorry I didn’t see how important Spike had become to you.” She bit her lip. “And I’m sorry he didn’t believe you.”

“What happened?” Willow asked hesitantly. “I mean, I saw what he did, wow, but how did Spike turn Sunnydale into a big hole in the ground? I kinda went to Loompaland after casting the spell.” She made a brave attempt at a lopsided grin. “Figuratively speaking. There were no actual chocolates or jaunty tunes.”

Buffy slowly told them about the battle, everything she had seen; Dawn reached out and caught up her hand when she spoke of Amanda’s brutal death, and then when Buffy got to Spike, she had to backtrack a bit, tell them about Angel and the amulet, and when she got to the end part, the part where he was on fire, she closed her eyes for the telling and realized she was shaking, except it wasn’t from grief or shock, it was anger, pure rage as white-hot as the rays of soulfire that had burst from Spike in the cavern -- rage at Angel, for riding into town on his white horse and handing over Spike’s death; rage at the First, for making Spike’s sacrifice necessary; rage at Spike himself for being a stupid jerk hero who had died and left her behind; rage at the world, or fate, or whatever was in charge of these things for making her choose a champion and then offering him up as a sacrifice.

Rage at herself, for killing him with her choice.

When she finished the tale and opened her eyes, she was surprised to see that rage reflected in the eyes of her sister and friends.

“So Angel just happened to bring you this amulet? Did he tell you what it would do?” Dawn's voice was harsh.

“I don’t think he knew,” Buffy frowned. “He just said it ‘bestowed strength to the right person who wears it.’ Someone stronger than human, but with a soul.”  _ A champion _ , he’d said, and she’d known right away who her champion was, the knight who would bear her favor. She just hadn’t expected her favor to destroy him. “There was a file, but it was all the usual prophecy gobbledy-gook, pretty specific about Sunnydale and the year but the rest was all vague hyperbole. Or I thought it was hyperbole.”

“Where did he get it?” Willow’s face was concerned. “And, um, are you sure it was Angel?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Well, yeah, I do recognize Angel. And I touched him, so it wasn’t the First.”

“I mean, it wasn’t Angelus?”

That was out of left field. “I think I’d remember if I’d made Angel lose his soul. Seriously, does everyone think I’d--”

“Not you,” Willow clarified hastily. “Um, I just mean, when I went to LA a while back, it wasn’t just to get Faith. Fred called me because I had experience with restoring his soul. He was kinda rampagey.”

“Oh.” That was even more out of left field. Like out of the ballpark in Antarctica.

“I fixed it, but, um, you had enough to worry about without that, too. That’s why I didn’t mention it.” Willow made a face. “I guess he had a thing going with Cordelia?”

That made Buffy feel kind of extra-weird. He hadn’t mentioned Cordelia when he was hinting he was waiting for her. “No, I’m pretty sure it was actually Angel.” 

“And he just popped in to give you an amulet that blew up your boyfriend.” Xander’s voice was sarcastic. 

“He’s not my--” Buffy started automatically, then she felt her face crumpling again. “Oh, god.”

There had been more crying then, and more talking, Buffy finally confiding in her friends what Spike had become for her, what she’d lost, and trying to parse out just what had been going on with the amulet and Angel and the First, and by the time they’d made it to LA, parking the bus behind the Hyperion so they could hit up Angel for crash space and medical care, Buffy had figured out some things that had been a bit murky before, about herself and about Angel and especially about Spike.

She’d walked right in the front door of the hotel, stomped up to Angel as he turned to greet her, and punched him right in the nose before she’d even said hello.

It had ended up being a very brief visit. 

Now, with a year’s perspective, Buffy had accepted that Angel hadn’t known that the amulet would burn Spike up, hadn’t planned on it being a one-way ticket. He’d not even known Spike had his soul, and had offered to wear it himself; it had been Buffy who’d decided Spike was the one she wanted to fight by her side, and she hadn’t known either. She’d mostly forgiven Angel, and had made some inroads on forgiving herself, but the scars still remained -- burn scars on her hand, in the shape of his fingers, and deeper scars in her heart.

Drusilla had ripped those scars wide open, and hope was like salt in the gaping wounds, but even so… Buffy couldn’t not hope. Drusilla might be crazy and evil and dangerous, but… she knew things. Buffy couldn’t just assume she was lying or wrong, not without at least following up on the leads. She needed to find out the truth of what had happened to Spike.

Which in the end might mean Buffy needed a helping hand out of the River of Denial she’d plunged head-first into yet again, but wasn’t that what friends were for?

Dawn was the first to arrive, newly returned to London on a break from her international school in Rome. They’d had dinner before Buffy had gone out to Highgate the night before, but it was still exciting, having her back; they shared a quick hug that felt somehow not-right, since Dawn had added a couple of inches in the last year, but also felt perfectly right, because Dawn. 

“You okay?” Dawn said, eyes concerned.

“Yes,” Buffy said automatically, then laughed. “Well, no. Maybe. I’ll talk about it when everyone’s here. But I’m not hurt or anything.”

“Well, that’s a first,” Dawn quipped, handing over a latte. “Here you go. Two pumps of hazelnut, double shot, extra foam. Just the way you like it.”

“Thanks.” Buffy took a sip and resumed her pacing as Dawn settled into the seat closest to her.

The youngest Scooby rolled her eyes when Xander entered the room with an orange box. “Krispy Kremes? You’re in London, home of a million bakeries, and you bring Krispy Kremes?”

“Nothing like the classics,” Xander replied affably. “How’s my Dawninator? Talking Italian like Robert DeNiro?” He nodded at Buffy, who nodded curtly back.

“Better,” she shrugged, reaching out for a donut.

“She gives me grief, but she wants one,” Xander sighed, rolling his single eye in Buffy’s direction. He’d acquired some vintage-looking leather eyepatches and was wearing one today, something handmade with brass rivets. 

“Well, duh. I didn’t say they weren’t yummy. Just super American-expat-lame.” Dawn took a blissful bite.

“You okay?” Xander eyed Buffy in her pacing.

“Yes-no-maybe-she’ll talk about it when everyone’s here,” Dawn replied before Buffy could, through a mouthful of donut.

“Gotcha.” Xander settled into his usual chair, selecting a jelly donut for himself. “Been a while since a good yes-no-maybe emergency. Better sugar up.”

“It’s not an emergency,” Buffy said, though it felt like a lie.

Xander’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s not how Giles put it. He said it was ‘quite urgent, really.’ Which we all know is Giles-speak for ‘apocalypse incoming.’”

“Is there an apocalypse incoming?” Willow poked her head in the door. “Because I didn’t exactly dress for the occasion.” She slipped into the room, setting a pink box on the table.

“No,” Buffy sighed. “It’s actually something, um, personal.”

Willow blinked. “I didn’t bring ice cream. Just scones.” Buffy could almost see Willow trying to do math to figure out how Buffy had managed to fit in another regrettable sexcapade since she’d last seen her.

“It isn’t--” Buffy made a strangled noise of frustration. 

“She’ll talk about it when everyone’s here,” Dawn translated.

“Okey-dokey. Ooh, Krispy Kremes!”

Xander gave Dawn a smug glance as he settled back in his chair.

Andrew was the next to arrive, juggling a tray of Frappuccinos and a paper pastry bag. Buffy managed to stifle an eyeroll when he entered; she hadn’t actually expected Giles to invite the former-criminal-mastermind-wannabe to this meeting, but she supposed he had proved himself useful, and he was technically part of the Sunnydale crowd. And he was, she supposed, the only one of them who had been to California since Sunnydale. He might have some insights to share.

“I, um, I brought cookies,” he said nervously, sliding into the seat farthest from Buffy. “Um, what are we meeting about? Giles said something about, uh, California.”

“Did Giles say when he was getting here?” Buffy glanced at the conference room clock, sinking into her chair.

“Just now,” Giles said as he hurried into the room, a sheaf of files in his arms. “So sorry for running late. It took me longer than expected to gather the information you required.”

“You’re not that late,” Dawn said through a bite of scone. “It’s only, like, a minute after eight.”

“Which is later than eight o’clock,” Giles said briskly. “I do apologize, Buffy.”

“Frappuccino?” Andrew offered weakly; Giles declined with a faint frown, seating himself to Buffy’s right. 

“Okay.” Buffy took a bracing sip of her latte. “So you’ll never guess who I ran into last night at Highgate Cemetery.”

“Zombie Karl Marx?” Willow suggested eagerly, then frowned. “Though I suppose that wouldn’t be personal.”

“I don’t know,” Xander joked. “Buffy did get that B-minus in Modern World History. I’d want revenge.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Yes, because my high school grades are like a hot coal on my soul these days. No, there was no Zombie Karl Marx. As far as I know the father of communism is still hanging out in his grave, where he belongs.” She sighed. “It was Drusilla.”

That got everyone a the table to sit up straighter.

“ _ The  _ Drusilla?” Willow squeaked. “You mean Sp-” She cut off, flushing.

“Yes, Spike’s Drusilla.”

“Good lord,” Giles peered closer at Buffy. “Were you injured?”

“Not as such,” she said lightly. “She wasn’t there to kill me, just to talk.”

“Was that about the weather, or about the government?” Xander quipped, though his expression was serious.

“I’m not entirely sure. She was much with the cryptic.” Buffy quickly relayed Drusilla’s words from the night before, as verbatim as she could. 

“‘Give him my regards,’” Willow repeated when Buffy was done. “Him who?”

Buffy looked down at her hands, which were busily turning a scone to crumbs. “I… I think she meant Spike.”

Xander leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. “But Spike’s….” 

“Dead,” Buffy finished his sentence. “Yeah.” She stuffed a few of the scone-bits in her mouth to avoid having to say more right away.

Silence reigned for a long moment, broken only by the sound of Giles shuffling his folders. Andrew wasn’t looking at her, Buffy realized suddenly; he was poking his straw around his Frappuccino with suspiciously-deep concentration. She was about to ask him what his problem was when Dawn spoke.

“City of Angels has to be Los Angeles, right?” She was sitting on the edge of her seat, eyes wide and focused on Buffy’s face.

“Yeah, and City of Winds is obviously Chicago,” Buffy replied. “But the rest of the stuff? I mean, a tower forever falling might be the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but that’s like, on the other side of the world from LA.”

“Ooh!” Willow leaned forward. “There’s supposedly a gate called the Eye of the Needle in Jerusalem. Though, um, nobody ever has confirmed that.” She shrugged apologetically. “And that’s even further from LA.”

“Closer than the Land of Oz,” Xander pointed out. “You know, over the rainbow.”

Giles cleared his throat. “Buffy, If I may?”

“Yeah.” Buffy sighed. “I think we need to start at the beginning. What did you find out about the situation in California, Giles?”

Giles stood, file folders in hand, and had just opened his mouth to speak when a loud sputtering noise came from the end of the table; he and Buffy turned in unison to glare at Andrew and his offending straw.

“Sorry,” Andrew squeaked. “Um, please continue. Don’t mind me.” He set aside the down-to-just-ice Frappuccino he’d been slurping at and plucked a fresh one from the tray.

“Unfortunately,” Giles began, “my initial research has turned up more questions than answers. As you know, we made a decision, after the destruction of Sunnydale, to essentially leave Los Angeles in the care of Angel and his associates, largely due to the need to focus on other, more urgent issues.”

Buffy nodded impatiently. “Right. I remember making that decision. Can we skip ahead a bit?”

Giles glanced at her sidelong. “I merely wished to, er, reiterate the context in which my reports should be taken. In any case, as you are well aware, Angel’s subsequent decision to accept employment with Wolfram and Hart was... somewhat problematic, and we have had little direct contact with his team since. Other than Andrew’s mission to, er, rescue Dana, we’ve not sent any agents out to that area of California, and we’ve not had any contact in return, other than that baffling phone conversation we discussed some weeks past.”

Buffy nodded slowly. “You never heard back from him?”

“No, indeed.” Giles cleared his throat. “I left several voicemails, but he never did explain what he needed Willow for.”

“Fred hasn’t replied to my emails, either,” Willow interjected.

Buffy turned back to Giles. “All right. What’s the part you’re not telling me? You have that... face.”

Giles looked down at his folders. “Do I, indeed?” He precisely squared the folders on the table.

She rolled her eyes. “You have bad-news-face. Come on, Giles. Spit it out.”

He sighed. “Well, as you requested last night -- or, rather, early this morning -- I made some inquiries of the contacts I do have remaining in California, and learned some… unexpected news.” He cleared his throat. “It seems there may have been, er, a small apocalypse.”

Buffy felt a chill run down her spine. “Small how? Small, like only California got apocalypsed? Or small, like we need to stock up on hellfire ointment?”

“Small as in it ended up not happening,” Giles clarified. “My sources were rather short on details, but from what they were able to gather, there was some sort of internal power struggle at Wolfram and Hart, involving Angel. It culminated in a demonic assault on Los Angeles.” He removed his glasses and started to clean them. “It was, of course, covered up by the city’s officials, passed off as a riot over some controversial court verdict. Apparently there’s enough of those daily it’s a convenient excuse.”

“When was this?” Buffy stood and started pacing again, mind racing.

“The evening of the nineteenth. Very early yesterday morning, for us.”

“So it was over by the time I went to Highgate?”

“According to reports.” Giles set his glasses down atop the folders, fastidiously folding his handkerchief.

Buffy came and stood next to him, planting her hands on the table. “So, what’s the part you’re not telling me, Mister I-Fiddle-With-My-Glasses-When-I’m-Nervous?”

Giles looked up at Buffy solemnly. “The raid was repelled by Angel’s team, but I’m told there were no survivors.”

Willow gasped, and Xander swore under his breath, and Buffy sank into her chair, feeling numb. No survivors?  _ Dust and gone, and gone and dust. _

In the ensuing silence, Andrew’s quiet voice was like a shout. “No,” he whispered. “Oh, no.  _ Mi amigo _ ….”

Buffy’s head snapped up. “What did you say?”

“Uh….” Andrew’s eyes grew huge and he started to babble. “I, uh, was worried about my, um, vintage Commodore computer. You remember the Amiga, right? I, um, had one in storage in Los Angeles, waiting for it to, you know, get cool again, be all retro.…” He trailed off.

Buffy slowly rose to her feet, deliberately walking around the table to Andrew’s end, heart beating fast. “Andrew, I lived in California, within driving distance of Mexico, almost my entire life. Also, I watched Sesame Street. I know enough basic Spanish to know what you just said. So, I have two possibilities here. One is that you, of all people, managed to make friends with someone on Angel’s team during our extremely brief stay at their hotel.” She reached Andrew and stood beside him, folding her arms. “The second is that you left something out of your report when you returned to England with Dana. You wanna explain what you mean about your ‘friend?’”” She tapped her foot and waited, aware that everyone else in the room was watching their tableau.

“What do you mean, ‘of all people?’” Andrew looked hurt.

Buffy raised her eyebrows.

Andrew’s face crumpled. “He made me promise not to tell!” he wailed. 

“Who made you promise not to tell? Angel?” Buffy pressed.

Andrew shrank into his chair, holding up his Frappuccino as a shield. He took a huge sip through the straw and mumbled something unintelligible.

“Andrew!” Buffy barely managed to resist the urge to throw the damn Frappuccino across the room, but clearly Andrew saw her intent because he spun his chair away, curling protectively around the plastic cup.

“Spike!” he squeaked. “It was Spike!”

Buffy closed her eyes, taking a deep, calming breath. “In Sunnydale?”

“No,” Andrew said reluctantly, a pout on his face. “In Los Angeles. He was in Los Angeles with Angel. He was alive. He made me promise not to tell you.”

_ The fire spit him out and he shook the dust away. _ Buffy covered her face with her hands, feeling her shoulders start to shake with… relief? Rage? Grief? Something altogether complicated she couldn’t even figure out for herself. Spike had been alive, in Los Angeles, with Angel, and she hadn’t known. He hadn’t wanted her to know. 

And there had been no survivors.

Giles ruffled through his file folders. “You didn’t mention anything about Spike in your report,” he said sharply. 

“I did!” Andrew protested, shrinking into his chair again. “It’s in, um, the second to last paragraph.”

Buffy turned and looked at Giles as he set his glasses back on his face, not so much because she needed to look at Giles as because if she looked at Andrew for one more second she was going to pop him in the nose with full slayer strength, and she was pretty sure he wouldn’t survive.

Giles flipped through to the last page and read. “‘After providing Angel and his associates with the information required for them to assist, I hit the mean streets with a vampyr ally. Alas, we were ambushed, and my companion was captured by the slayer Dana. I rallied the troops and we converged upon the factory, where Dana was quickly subdued. Her vampyr prisoner survived, though his hands had been severed; I was advised he was expected to make a full recovery. (Please see attached research note as this contradicts the information in the Slayer’s Handbook, which states that severed vampyr limbs turn to dust.) At that time, per instructions, I secured Dana for transport back to Slayer HQ, with the assistance of my slayer team.’” Giles flipped the report closed again.

“You know what word doesn’t appear in that paragraph? ‘Spike.’” Xander pointed out, voice hard.

“Spike was your, er, ‘vampyr ally,’ then?” Giles’s voice was just as hard, and weary.

“Wait, Spike’s hands were severed?” Dawn yelped. “Like, cut off?”

Willow silently stood and walked around the table, putting her arm around Buffy’s shoulder. Buffy let her eyes close again, taking a few more deep breaths, leaning gratefully into Willow’s support.  _ I am not going to kill him. I am not going to kill him. I am not going to kill him. _

“But it was a man-to-man promise,” Andrew whined, and Buffy tensed.

Oh, she was going to  _ kill  _ him!

“Who signs your paycheck?” she demanded, rounding on him.

Andrew looked confused. “Um, the nice lady in HR? Jeanine?”

Buffy gritted her teeth. “Who. Is. Your. Boss?”

“Uh, Rupert?” When Buffy lifted her fist after all, he squeaked. “You! It’s you!”

Buffy pounded her fist into her own palm, feeling the sting. She’d probably have a bruise later. “What the hell were you thinking, not telling me that Spike was A, alive, and B, in Los Angeles?! How could you have possibly thought it was okay for me not to know that?!” She was trying not to shout, but definitely failing.

“He said he was going to tell you himself,” Andrew yelped, voice defensive. “I figured he had, and you just, um, didn’t want to talk about it!”

Buffy ground the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying not to cry. Crying was not effective leadership. Crying was not what she needed right now. “You should have told me!”

“I’m sorry!” Andrew stood abruptly. “I, um, I really have to go now.”

Willow stepped forward to Buffy’s side. “Hold on. There’s something else you aren’t telling us, isn’t there?”

Andrew took a shaky step backwards. “Uh, why would you say that?” His eyes widened. “Did you cast a spell? I thought you said--”

“I didn’t cast a spell,” Willow said wryly, folding her arms. “I’m just looking at your face, and I can tell.”

“Oh my god. Willow’s right.” Dawn came up on Buffy’s other side, mirroring Willow’s pose. “You totally have your guilty smile going.”

“I dunno,” Xander said from behind them. “He kind of always looks guilty to me.”

Andrew raised his hands defensively. “Look. I, um, I was only doing what I thought you would want. I mean, when you came to Italy, you told me right up front that I needed to stay out of your face and let you live your life, right? You even said it all Godfather like, with a  _ capisce _ on the end. And so when Angel and Spike showed up at the door of your apartment-”

Buffy saw red for a moment -- just a moment, she’d swear that in a court of law -- and when she was seeing normally again, Andrew was curled in the fetal position in his chair, arms wrapped around his head, hyperventilating. Willow had hold of one of her arms and Dawn had the other, and Willow was chanting something under her breath, and that was when Buffy noticed she had her hands clenched in fists and was kind of lunging forward against their grip, and she forced herself to relax.

Giles cleared his throat. “Please, Buffy, if you would kindly refrain from murdering our co-worker?”

“Thanks, Rupert,” Andrew whimpered.

“I can understand the impulse,” Giles went on forbiddingly. “And indeed, under the circumstances I am tempted to assist. But do think of the paperwork.”

Buffy hated paperwork; she consciously relaxed the rest of the way. Willow stopped chanting with a sigh and Dawn released her grip, stroking Buffy’s arm soothingly.

“Tell me about Italy,” Buffy said dully, turning and stalking back to the other side of the room. She heard a light slapping sound that she dearly hoped was Dawn whapping Andrew upside his traitorous head, and then Xander appeared by her side, solemnly holding out the half-empty box of Krispy Kremes.

She took two.

She ate the donuts quickly, then wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the wall as Andrew haltingly related his interactions with Spike and Angel. She remembered that night, going out dancing with the Immortal. She’d been trying to forget, just like she’d done every night since Sunnydale. Trying with all her might to move on.

God, if she’d just turned around, or sensed they were there. But she’d been intent on losing herself, and instead she’d lost Spike. Again. And there had been no survivors.

But Drusilla’s words kept whirling around in her head, mingling with what Andrew was saying until they almost became a song.

_ He shook the dust away and left the City of Angels behind. He’s lost. _

“And so I told them you were happy now, that you were moving on.”

_ Foolish girl. Lost can be found. _

“I said that you loved both of them, but you had to live your life. That was exactly what you’d told me that morning, remember?”

_ He’s looking for you, just as you search for him. But you’re both looking in the wrong places. _

“People change.”

She held out her left hand and looked at it, the smooth skin of burn scars in the shape of his hand, and she thought.

When Andrew was finished, she turned and glared at him. “So Spike was alive, and part of Angel’s team. Giles? Anything from your sources confirm or deny this?”

He cleared his throat. “Not as such.”

“Okay.” Buffy heaved a deep breath. “ _ Lost can be found _ , she said. I can’t… I can’t just assume that he’s dead. Not when I just found out he wasn’t. I have to find out for myself.” She turned and looked at Giles, feeling her face crumple into an almost sob. Her hand still stung and her head hurt and her stomach felt queasy -- from the sugar or the caffeine or just the sheer ineffable weight of the moment -- and her chest felt like it was going to burst, but she managed to keep her voice calm. “Giles, I have to know.” Well, almost calm; it did crack just a bit.

He looked at her steadily for a long moment, then sighed. “I quite agree, Buffy.” He squared his folders again. “I’d be sending a team to investigate in any case. Would you like to lead that team?”

“I’d like to  _ be _ that team. This is… this is something I think I have to do alone.”

“Can I come?” Dawn, Willow, and Xander asked in unison.

Buffy laughed. “Not all of you.” She turned and looked around the table. “Dawn, you have to go back to school soon, and Xander, you know we need you out in the field. There’s new slayers popping up every minute, and you’re our best point guy for that.” She bit her lip. “Willow? You up for a cross-Atlantic flight on zero notice?”

Willow quirked a lopsided grin. “Just let me get my go-bag. Oh, and some herbs and candles from Facilities. The ones in LA are way too expensive.” She rushed out the door.

“Giles? Cab to Heathrow?” Her mentor nodded, flipping open his cell phone.

Buffy glared at Andrew across the length of the table; he was sucking nervously on the last of the Frappuccinos, like a dying man enjoying his last meal. “I still might kill you later,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “I recommend while I’m gone you work on making yourself either indispensible or scarce.”

“You’ll start by rewriting this report,” Giles said sternly, flipping his phone shut. “Do be sure to correct any other oversights or omissions.”

“Yes, sir!” Andrew said quickly.

Xander and Dawn came up and hugged Buffy then, Xander’s a huge bear hug, Dawn’s more cautious but sweet.

“Where are you going to go, Buffy?” she said softly. “Chicago?”

“No,” Buffy said firmly. “Maybe eventually, but I think I need to start at the beginning. I’m going to Los Angeles, find out what really happened.” She glanced at the clock. “I’ll be in California this evening.”

She grabbed her coffee and ran out the door.

END CHAPTER 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 Notes:
> 
> Krispy Kreme opened its first UK location in October 2003, in Harrods of London. While that location closed in 2011, there are now ~90 Krispy Kreme stores in the UK.


End file.
